"This is a different world than it was in the 1960s when I
was growing up, when you used to be able to have mom at home and
dad at work. Now mom and dad both have to work, whether
they want to or not," Romney said. Romney
here was speaking of the increased importance of child-care
services.

Why is this a big deal? Well, just this week, the Romney campaign
has paraded around the "War on Moms" as the first talking point
of the general election season. That came after comments from
Democratic strategist Hilary Rosen, who said that Ann Romney "has
never worked a day in her life." This quickly turned into an
early-morning Fox News appearance for Ann
Romney and a day full of Republicans seizing on the
opportunity in this everlasting "War on Women."

A sampling:

Rush Limbaugh: "The Obama
administration has just effectively, whether they know it or not,
they have launched a war on motherhood."

U.S. Rep. Cynthia Lummis: “They're
using surrogate women — including Hilary Rosen, who is a paid
spokesperson — to deliver messages about Republicans that
the president does not want to deliver himself. But
quite clearly, her remarks are reflective of the message that the
political machine within the White House intends to put
out.”

That's not a direct contrast in ideology from his previous
comments, but Romney's 1994 statements matter because, well,
they're a lite version of Hilary
Rosen's.

No, Romney didn't single anyone out like Rosen did. Or use as
crass terminology as Rosen did. But they both recognized that
it's a different era, an era that has shifted more and more women
out of home. And that's because, as Mitt Romney and Hilary Rosen
both argue, that most women simply cannot afford to raise their
children without one paying job — and, as Romney says, sometimes
two paying jobs.

UPDATE: This morning, there's this from MSNBC's Chris Hayes, in which
Romney says that welfare parents "need to go to work" in a
January town hall in New Hampshire.

“I wanted to increase the work requirement. I said, for
instance, that even if you have a child two years of age, you
need to go to work. And people said, ‘Well that's heartless,' and
I said ‘No, no, I'm willing to spend more giving daycare to allow
those parents to go back to work. It'll cost the state more
providing that daycare, but I want the individuals to have the
dignity of work.’”